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Brooke Rodriguez comes up to bat for the San Marcos Rattlers in the opening game of the Rattler Spring Break Classic against Austin Bowie. San Marcos dropped their first game in a 6-2 loss
Daily Record photo by Colton McWilliams

San Marcos drops opener in Rattler Spring Break Classic

SMHS SOFTBALL
Friday, March 10, 2023

Following an emotional game against Schertz-Clemens, San Marcos was unable to keep up with former district bunkmate Austin Bowie as the Rattlers lost 6-2 in the opening game of the Rattler Spring Break Classic.

Coming off of the hard fought win against the Buffaloes, head coach Cathy Stroughton saw the still reeling from the previous game.

“We had a big emotional win on Tuesday night,” Stroughton said. “You try and get your team to come in and approach every game with the same exact intensity … they came out and gutted it so hard Tuesday that we came out this morning with a little emotional hangover.”

Despite the strange schedule, Stroughton wants her team to keep up their aggressive mentality no matter who the Rattlers end up playing.

“It’s kind of odd to have a tournament between district games,” Stroughton said. “Normally you start district play, you are playing consecutive district games. Right now we want our players to maintain that intensity level regardless of the opponent we play.”

After trailing 1-0 in the top of the first inning, outfielder Eliza Loranzo slammed a lead-off home run for the Rattlers to tie the game up at 1-1.

Angelina Alveraz followed up the home run with a one out double before scoring on a Jessica DeLeon RBI single as the Lady Rattlers took a 2-1 lead.

Bowie was able to take advantage of two Rattler throwing errors in the second inning during a two out single towards right field which led to two more runs coming across for the Bulldogs as they took the lead 3-2.

The Bulldogs held San Marcos off the scoreboard in the bottom of the second inning and looked to add more runs in the third.

Despite having runners on second and first base, the Rattlers pulled off the double play to keep Bowie off the board.

San Marcos threatened to tie the game up and potentially retake the lead as the Rattlers hit three consecutive singles with two outs to load the bases.

However, a fly-out towards left field ended the inning as the Rattlers couldn’t bring home the runs.

Following a single and an error, Bowie brought home two more runs with an RBI double to center field as the Bulldogs extended the lead at 5-2.

A fielder’s choice added another run for the Bulldogs as Bowie entered the final inning with a 6-2 lead.

Bowie closed out the game with a 1-2-3 inning as the Bulldogs held on for the win.

In the end, Stroughton pointed out that the team needs to focus on cleaning up the little mistakes that could prove to be costly.

“We were not as sharp today even though we didn’t play poorly,” Stroughton said. “We had some key errors and made some base-running mistakes that ultimately cost us.”

Another focus for the team heading into the weekend will be batting.

“We should have hit a little bit better at the plate than we did,” Stroughton said. We just jumped on them in the first inning and I think we just settled. We have learned that we can’t just settle and be satisfied but rather keep going.”

San Marcos returns to play Friday against Iowa Park at 10:45 a.m. before playing a double on Saturday against Nixon-Smiley at 9:00 a.m. and Houston Kinkaid at 10:45 a.m.

San Marcos Record

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